Transistor-based semiconductors have dominated the computing industry since its start. But a much more exotic, transistor-less option has long been lurking in the wings. Superconducting circuits, which boast resistance-less wires and ultrafast switches, can perform the tasks that silicon-based systems do in a fraction of the time.
Now new logic designs are emerging that suggest superconducting processors could be not only faster but also tens or even hundreds of times as energy efficient as their CMOS cousins. And these processors could provide a much-needed path to the next generation of supercomputers, proponents say.
This next generation, called exaflop computers, would be capable of executing a quintillion (1018) operations per second, about 1000 times as many as existing computers can. Once thought to be just 5 or 10 years away, they now seem nearly impossible. A recent estimate suggests that an exascale supercomputer built using CMOS technology would consume some 500 megawatts—the output of a modest nuclear power plant. "What everybody's shooting for is to be able to overturn [that] result," says Erik DeBenedictis of Sandia National Laboratories, in Albuquerque. "Now there's a glimmer of light that it might happen."
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